Hey guys since its getting warmer I'm starting to get things together and get the car back on the road. I want to put some new coils on it and seeing if there are coils that will drop the front 1". I don't want to cut a coil. Any suggestions? Thanks!
You might be able to look in the Speedway catalog and buy a shorter spring that is designed for lowering a circle track car. Either a Street Stock or a Factory Stock uses a full pig tail type spring but you would need to know your dimensions and rating
Cut em!!! Take a half coil at a time, until you like how it sits. If you mess them up, you can always buy new springs.
Depending on how you plan to use the car might/should dictate what kind of compromise between appearance and comfort one is willing to make. I wud'nt cut anything until I put the car on the road and see how I like ride comfort. One the other hand, if it's going to be used mostly for some kind of competition enviorment - ride comfort may/will not be all that important. If the car will be used on those Ohio roads, after this brutal winter = "potholes everywhere" - take a little time to feel how unmodified spring work. I run Moog 8306's. B4 that I had springs w/ cut coils " not sure the specs" - they were on car when I bought it. I liked the stance; I did'nt like the ride and my long tube headers wud drag over speed humps, low driveways and the like. The springs on the car when I acquired it were realitively new; the 8306's I installed, raised the car abt an inch. No more dragging collectors and much better ride. I consider this one of the better upgrades I have done. Well worth the sacrifice of the extra inch clearance in the wheel housing..
I've driven my car all over the place, it survived the Detroit roads, and it's lowered, it all depends on what you want. I bought Mustang 1" lowering spring, and still took half a coil out of them.
Like you say "it all depends on what you want". Everyone has a little different opinion/feeling on ride comfort as they do on most things in life. I did'nt want a car that jarred my teeth and feeling ever minor imperfection in the road, What may be acceptable to one, may be highly objectionable to another. Example: I had four leaf springs on the back of my car - I found the ride bone jarring/vry objectionable. I have seen others here who had no issues whatsoever w/ the same brand/mfg's springs. The only way I was able to tolerate them - was remove the bottom leaf. Ride comfort vry much improved after the mod. Short of removing the leaf, my next move was remove those springs.
It's also funny how tolerance and taste can change as we all get older too. What I used to love driving as a daily driver years ago I would have a very tough time tolerating these days. Along those same lines I have a tip for you or anyone else wanting to maintain some civility while still allowing a bit of spirited driving performance. PROGRESSIVE RATE SPRINGS. I lower ALL of my cars and these are the only ones my wife will let me install on her daily driver(09' Camry). They're really nice riding springs until you need them to be stiffer in hard corners and I'd be very curious if any around here have ever used them on these cars.
I like my car to be exciting to drive, it's not my everyday car, if I want a luxury soggy ride, I'll take my F150 Lariat.
I don' t drive my car daily either, but, I want to be able to enjoy myself when I do a 500mi. trip over all kinds of roads when I arrive. Therefore, I can settle for something between "exiciting/spirited. I gess "groberts" statement, supplied the word I am looking for "CIVIL". I don't believe anyone driving one of these cars expects luxury ride.
With as much as I take pride in being known for having extreme tastes.. I hate to admit it that I'm not actually looking forward to driving my Comet every place we go. Once you start going over 2 inch drops.. things get pretty stiff and uncomfortable. Extra fat sway bars on each end just adds insult to injury. More recently, my overly confident 14 year old is trying to talk me into doing our Comet GT in a more pro-stock/pro-street style. I've had those type of suspensions on cars before and the ride is actually quite nice on the street.. but I'm not too fond of the high speed stability. Those taller quick rise front suspensions aren't so hot on initial turn in at lower speeds either. Those are more of a "turn it on.. and turn it off before you need to turn corners" kinda' cars. We'll probably end up with some sort of compromise between the two styles.
See if you can find some 2 in drop spindles that will work,that`s the proper way to lower the car,& you will have a lot less problems.
Chop chop chop chop I tried spring clamps for a while.... But they looked wierd, and I was always afraid they were going to loosen up on me